Cleaning the toilet is one of the less pleasant chores facing many homeowners. Doing a thorough job can require a certain amount of time, elbow grease, and effort. At present, there are a variety of products designed to treat the water handled by such fixtures. Although these can help reduce the frequency at which the interior of their bowls must be cleaned, their effect is limited against heavy deposits. When the washing machine was first introduced at the turn of the century, homemakers not only became more productive, they also became free of the most difficult and arduous household chore of that time. They became freer to pursue their own educations and careers, and therefore in a sense, society benefited as a whole. Today the most difficult and arduous household chore is CLEANING THE TOILET. Additionally, the number of bathrooms per household has increased over the years, especially in the ever larger mansions being built today with the number of bathrooms doubling and tripling per unit. It is not only arduous and smelly to clean the ever increasing number of toilet bowls in the world, but it is also degrading to one's soul. Mankind can do better.
Over the years, many attempts have been made to automate the toilet, some using programmable key pads and electrically controlled functions and features, while others used auto-release chemicals such as antiseptics. The first “automatic flushing toilet system” was invented by Masakazu Matsunaga of Asaka, Japan (U.S. Pat. No. 4,134,163, issued Jan. 16, 1979, hereinafter, “Matsunaga”). Matsunaga disclosed “an automatic flushing system for flushing a plurality of toilet bowls with water, which is provided with a solenoid-controlled valve and a detecting device. So long as the detecting appliance detects no toilet user, the solenoid-controlled valve is opened every time a predetermined time lapses, thereby to flush all the toilet bowls. If only one toilet user is detected, the solenoid-controlled valve is opened thereafter upon lapse of a reference time shorter than the predetermined time, thereby to flush the toilet bowls. If two or more toilet users are detected, the solenoid-controlled valve is opened thereafter upon lapse of a time shorter than the reference time, the time being shorter by a predetermined length for each additional toilet user detected.” Martin J. Layerty, Jr. of Earlysville, Va. (U.S. Pat. No. 4,793,588, issued Dec. 27, 1988, hereinafter, “Layerty”) is the earliest reference to a fully automatic flush toilet with a sensor. Layerty disclosed an “invention [that] relates to flush valves in which an external operating handle is eliminated. An electronic sensor, solenoid valve and a solenoid contained within a single unit to operate a flush valve are provided which is either built into the flush valve or can be retrofitted to a conventional flush valve with an external operating handle. The solenoid valve can also be controlled by external means separate and apart from the infra-red sensor mechanism.” Layerty controlled his “sensor operated flush valve” by the magnetization of a coil. Actuation of the coil for a pre-set period of time is caused by a timer which is started by a signal coming from the infrared sensor implanted in small round holes in a cap. The infrared sensor could sense if the toilet had been used and sent a signal after a preset period of time so as to electrify the coil. On May 3, 1994, U.S. Pat. No. 5,307,524 was issued to Bennie N. Veal (hereinafter, “Veal”) which included an “automatic toilet seat device which will cause a toilet seat to be either raised or lowered” under the control of a micro-processor controlled first switch that activates an electric motor to raise the toilet seat and “a float switch associated with a tank of the toilet” which activates the motor to lower the toilet seat after the toilet has been flushed. Further, U.S. Pat. No. 4,183,105 was issued to Leo K. Womack on Jan. 15, 1980 that introduced the automatic infusion into a toilet bowl of chemicals “admixed with water” to “clean, disinfect, and deodorize” the bowl.
With all the sophisticated automation and advanced technical features of the prior art toilet bowl cleaning systems, one must ask, “what is that manual toilet bowl cleaning brush doing next to almost every toilet in almost every home?” The world is well aware of the automatic flushing toilets like Matsunaga and Layerty, which employed automatic sensors that sense humans and/or toilet bowl debris alike to automatically flush toilets in conjunction with timers, etc. It is also well known in the art that electric motors under the control of micro-processors can be used to raise and lower toilet seats either before or after flushing, etc. (Veal). Furthermore, automatic infusion into toilet bowls with chemicals is also well known. (Womack) So with all this automation, why do humans continue to use brushes manually controlled by humans to actually wash in inner rim and vertical wall of toilet bowls, worldwide?
A need now exists to eliminate the manual toilet bowl cleaning brush and to replace it with an improved, low maintenance, apparatus and method for the automatic cleaning of an entire toilet bowel using an electrically powered motor that simultaneously spins flexible, but rigid, circular brushes that are substantially the same length as the height of the bowl in both vertical and horizontal directions; not only around the bowl, but also along the height of the bowl, with special attention on the two parts of the bowl that collect the most calcium, lime, rust and debris: at the “water line” and “under the rim”. Many times, the longer one waits to clean a toilet bowl, the more likely an anti-calcium, lime and/or rust (hereinafter just “rust”) chemicals will be required to soak the water line and under the rim first, for a few minutes, before cleaning the bowl rigorously with a brush. Otherwise, even the use of manual brushes can be ineffective. Therefore, the automatic introduction of anti-rust chemicals for timed soaking before cleaning is also needed to achieve full automation of the task of cleaning a toilet bowl.